Chapter 15 - the photograph taken tomorrow)
Police located Mara's car thirty minutes later.
It had been abandoned at a gas station.
No blood.
No signs of violence.
Inside the passenger seat they found Lily's backpack.
Mara's phone was beneath it.
The last incoming call came from a prepaid number.
The call lasted fourteen seconds.
Immediately afterward, Mara drove to Lily's school and signed her out.
Security cameras showed Mara walking normally.
Lily beside her.
No visible weapon.
No obvious threat.
Then the cameras captured something else.
A black SUV waited near the parking lot.
Mara saw it.
She stopped.
A woman stepped from the back seat.
Blonde hair.
Dark glasses.
Mara's body language changed instantly.
She placed one hand protectively around Lily.
The woman approached.
They spoke for less than a minute.
Then all three entered the SUV willingly.
Daniel watched the footage repeatedly.
"Who is she?"
Ava enlarged the image.
The face was partially hidden.
But Daniel recognized her.
The woman from his wedding photograph.
The woman Lily identified.
The woman Mara had written about.
Ask Ellen about Room Six.
But Ellen Price was in a secure rehabilitation center.
Police confirmed it physically.
Ava called the center.
Ellen was asleep.
A guard stood outside her room.
Daniel stared at the screen.
"Then who is this?"
Mara had once said Ellen was number six.
Maybe Room Six had never referred to Ellen herself.
Maybe it referred to someone who looked like her.
Someone Mara feared.
Someone Lydia feared too.
Ava's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Daniel.
"We found the SUV."
"Where?"
"Blackwater Lake."
Daniel's heart stopped.
They drove there with sirens screaming.
The SUV sat beside an abandoned boat launch.
All four doors were open.
No people.
Daniel ran toward the water.
"Lily!"
Ava followed.
"Lily!"
Nothing.
Then Daniel heard a sound from inside an old boathouse.
He ran.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, beneath a hanging lamp, Lily sat on a wooden bench.
Alone.
Daniel crossed the room and pulled her into his arms.
"Lily."
She started crying.
"Daddy."
"Where's Mommy?"
Lily pointed toward the back door.
"She went with the lady."
"Why?"
"Mommy said she had to."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Daniel checked Lily for injuries.
She appeared unharmed.
Ava searched the boathouse.
On a table sat an envelope.
Daniel's name was written across the front.
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel stared at it.
Mara stood beside the blonde woman.
Behind them was Lydia Vale.
All three were younger.
The photograph appeared to have been taken at least fifteen years earlier.
Daniel turned it over.
Three names were written on the back.
Mara Vale.
Ellen Price.
Charlotte Reed.
Daniel's hands began shaking.
Reed.
He read the third name again.
Charlotte Reed.
He had never heard it before.
Ava searched police databases.
No immediate result.
Lily pulled Daniel's sleeve.
"Daddy."
He looked down.
"What?"
"The lady gave me something."
Lily opened her hand.
A small brass key rested in her palm.
A black tag hung from it.
7.
Daniel looked at Ava.
Room Seven.
Then Lily reached into her coat and removed another object.
A photograph.
"She said you have to see this one."
Daniel took it.
His breath stopped.
The photograph showed Mara standing outside a house Daniel had never seen.
Beside her stood an older man.
Tall.
Gray haired.
Daniel recognized the face instantly.
Samuel Reed.
His father.
The man who had supposedly died twenty years earlier.
Daniel turned the photograph over.
A date had been written across the back.
Tomorrow's date.
Beneath it were six words.
BRING THE KEY IF YOU WANT MARA.
Daniel looked toward the dark lake.
A distant engine started somewhere beyond the trees.
Ava reached for her radio.
Lily grabbed Daniel's hand.
"Daddy."
Daniel looked down.
She was staring at the photograph.
Her face had become pale.
"What is it?"
Lily pointed toward a window behind Samuel.
A face was visible through the glass.
A woman's face.
Daniel leaned closer.
The woman looked almost exactly like Mara.
Almost.
Lily whispered.
"That's the lady Grandma was afraid of."
Daniel stared at the photograph as the distant engine disappeared into the night.
The freezer had not been the beginning.
North House had not been the beginning.
Lydia Vale had not been the beginning.
And somewhere beyond the trees, Mara was walking willingly toward the one secret she had never told Daniel.
The secret behind Room Seven.
May you like
The secret connected to his father.
And the woman in the window who should not exist.
